I don't know what to think. It's like seeing two movies at once. One I like and one I don't care about. Rian Johnson manages to do some surprising things in this one. Some moments are really moving and feel epic even when the scale isn't huge. But does it make the movie good when it's drowned in an universe that became nonsense because Disney didn't think about what they were doing when they made The Force Awakens? I don't know...

It was a weird experience seeing this one. Half alive. Half dead.

About the dead part, Richard Brody wrote that line in his review of his movie and its rings very true to me:

"Now, in “The Last Jedi,” that world has been tamed, tamped down, boxed in, neatly packaged, to a chilling extreme. It fixes its heroes in an abstemious, militarized world of twenty-four-hour-a-day work for mere survival, in which no personal life remains outside the realm of official function, a de-mentalized world that the movie presents, moreover, as appealing."

First half is poorly made and sticky-taped together, really poor pacing and all that. Either there were some really tough decisions in the editing room or simply the writing/structure was weak. It starts getting pretty cool midway through the movie where there are a few interesting story developments and the movie gets into a groove and things start flowing a bit better.The new characters were one of the best things about TFA but I felt a bit uninvolved in their experiences this time round (happy to see more Poe I suppose).There were some pretty lame attempts at humour. Levity is fine but the approach used in this film worked against it.It's a mixed bag visually, occasionally dazzling, sometimes bland- a few scenes with that ugly TV (?) look which has been becoming more prominent in modern action films.

There was a fair bit of nonsense overall running through this movie.

I don't know man, the critical response to this film puzzles me. As does Disney's decision to give RJ an entire trilogy based off this film. I get what Drenk means. When the credits rolled, I wasn't really sure how I felt and not in a good way. Just in a sort of 'okay..I guess' way.Don't get me wrong, it's watchable.

MEDIUM SPOILERS

There's a scene where a certain character sacrifices themselves and this will most likely be the most visually stunning moment in RJ's career (and one of the most 'wow' moments in the franchise). Truly incredible. Too bad half of the audience were morons and were laughing at the scene for some bizarre reason.

FULL-ON SPOILERS

Seriously, what the fuck was the point of Snoke?

One of the most disappointing moments during the film was that chase scene on Casino planet, my mind began to wander and I was pretty surprised at how quickly it lost me. It was just mindless and uninteresting.

Yes. I forgot to say that the pacing was weird. It's very hard to get into and is ultimately overlong—but feels rushed...There are nice transitions. But the weirdest thing is what you're talking about: it sometimes looks and feels like a Rian Johnson movie but the movie is mixed with scenes that look bland and lack tension. There is a 45 minutes cut version of that movie that I would love.

SPOILERS

DON'T READ

SERIOUSLY

I mean, the Snoke thing shows that this First Order/Rebellion thing doesn't make sense and has no reality. I like that his death is basically Johnson saying: "Fuck that" to the mystery box Abrams opened. But you have that First Order things coming out of nowhere, being an abstract threat to the galaxy. What galaxy? They wiped out the Republic because they don't want to deal with any real fight. It's not even about the weird irony of the past haunting the future. It's pure abstraction.

They even killed Phasma because they didn't care about her. She was just a cool costume. That's why it sometimes feel like homework to deal with that.

And so much of that movie is about The Resistance. The end is about the Resistance. It's...not good...

Then: everything about Rey is great. The plot twist is also a way to escape the mystery box but it's great that she has no place in this story. It's also interesting. This new trilogy tries to imitate the first one. It wants to share its blood. It doesn't. But the way of Kylo Ren is the way to be. End all that. No. Instead, you have foreigners being doomed by an heritage that isn't theirs...

OK, hopefully those are enough spoiler warnings. I thought the movie was really bad on the whole. It pretty much amounted to a bad Star Wars-themed action movie, so if you're kind of indifferent to Star Wars-specific spaceships and contexts, there's really not much more there. The lightsaber fight choreography was pretty good in that fight scene in the red room, but other than that, I got bored of the endless spaceships shooting at each other and high stakes infiltrating plots. It happens in just about every Star Wars movie. Do I need to see it again? Nah. Maybe there's some slight commentary about leadership or something, but not really.

One of the biggest issues was the shallow dialogue. The diction was just awful. It's like the characters each have the vocabulary of a second grader. There was no insight into anything important (no, saying, "keep hope" or "don't fight the ones you hate, but keep the things you love" doesn't have any weight).

Mark Hamill's acting was pretty flat and awkward, and so were the scenes between him and Daisy Ridley. I didn't like John Boyega's storyline at all as it was tired and uninspired, though I could see how someone would like some of the plot details (the casino was kind of cool, I guess). And the attempts at humour .... Ugh. Just awful. Lots of people laughed, but my gosh, it was campy. Maybe I shouldn't expect more or something, but this was just crappy, trying-to-be-cheeky super cheap stuff. All throughout the movie too! Some other scenes were ultra campy as well, such as that one with Chewbacca eating at the campfire.

The movie was totally devoid of any intellect. If I didn't sound pessimistic and pretentious before, well I probably do now ... but I'm not suggesting that the film needed to be really complex or snooty or say something about the origins and history of human greed or something like that. What I would want, though, is some sort of hint of meaning beyond "do good," or "keep persisting," or at least some sort of exploration of those things with a dash of nuance. Yeah, Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker are conflicted, but there's not much nuance to any of it. It's just spelled right out and then it's back to shooting blasters. They go through a bit of change, but I don't care enough and there's no depth there anyway. Why is Kylo Ren tempted by the dark side and by Snoke? What were Snoke's motives besides controlling the galaxy and being a really, really bad scary guy? Why are the First Order and Resistance fighting anyway? Do they even have any differences other than the First Order people being mostly ugly and sort of sinister for no reason at all? There's not really any reason given for the fighting other than that both sides want some control of the galaxy, but there's no reason to full-out attack each other other than that The First Order feel like being really bad guys. Perhaps I'm trying to read too much into this and should just accept that the First Order are basically the League of Extraordinarily Evil Psychopaths whose unstated motto must be "we want to rule things and have power but we also like looking evil and killing stuff!" I get that a lot of kids are going to want to see this movie, but there can still be some bigger intellectual weight or offering of something to be learned.

The other thing is that the galaxy is hermetically sealed in The Force Awakens and this one. We're shown some citizens in a casino in this movie, in that place where that old orange bad-CGI character with the goggles lives in The Force Awakens, and on Rey's planet, but other than that, the universe is populated by a few key characters fighting for the Rebels and in the Emp -- I mean, the Resistance and the First Order. We can probably fill in the gaps and assume that others exist out there with stakes in this conflict, but these movies rarely show it, so rather than feeling vast as the size of a galaxy should, these movies feel really boxed in to me, like everything exists in these closed-in rooms (they do spend a lot of time on spaceships, so that could be it too). They try to insert some exotic creatures here and there to show diversity and variation, but these are created with terrible CGI and end up looking really bad and computer-generated.

What else? I hate to say it, but I just didn't really think the John Williams score worked, except in a few key scenes at the end. But the instrumentation and the classic themes are so damn tired by this point. It all feels recycled and the music failed to heighten or create much emotion, other than annoyance -- and believe me, I'm a music person and really like John Williams in general.

So I think that's all I have to say. In sum, a bad Star Wars-themed mostly action movie with no depth, crappy dialogue, and just about no insight into anything (and no, a good vs. evil dichotomy is not insightful, at least not how it's presented here. In other works, I've seen suggestions about dichotomies actually explored to gain insight into something we should find meaningful, but there's none of that here). I definitely won't see the next spinoff, and I probably won't see the next main story movie in two years.

I entirely agree with you and that's the main issue with these movies. The First Order is an abstract threat to an abstract galaxy. If I remember correctly, the movie says that they've "won"? They are in control. Of what? From what we see the galaxy seems...fine...? The First Order is just chasing fifty people across the galaxy, seeming really worried about powerless people...? That's why it feels like watching people in a Star Wars simulation.

I also wanted to talk about the casino: I was waiting for it, thinking it would be fresh, but like Lottery said I was drifting watching it. It was so weird. Not only because Finn is now an empty vessel for cheap jokes and Rose—the new character—just spits plot at us and that they have absolutely no real moment where they talk to each other or seem to have a bond. (Remember when Finn is angry at Del Toro for taking as payment the half-moon from Rose? Why does he care that much? Who knows!) And the scenes were rushed, lifeless, with no sense of adventure...It was sad...

But I liked everything about Rey and Ren. Their fight together was epic. The shots after Dern kills herself by jumping her ship into The First Order were stunning. What the movie showed about leadership was interesting, it's too bad that Poe Dameron is an underwhelming character and that Laura Dern came out of nowhere but her last scene with Carrie Fisher—who's very good in that movie, making everything stronger and more real just by the strength of her presence—was a sweet note.

I actually don't mind if it's about repeating the past, but I wish the whole didn't feel as fake...And can a trilogy function if every movie works against the last one? That "scene" with Maz was funny—once again another "cool looking" character from The Force Awakens that was supposed to be mysterious but that is actually just...a plot faciliator...

I'll see the last one. And then the new one from Rian Johnson—since he'll be writing the first one, maybe it will be better than that...But I see in The Last Jedi how all his interesting ideas about legacy ended being wind and I don't hope too much.

about one million times better than tfa but that's like saying HIV is better than cancer. thankfully more like rogue one than tfa, which is to say clearly not made by jj abrams. when johnson gets his visual daring on, which isn't often enough, it's pretty pretty pretty pretty great. i really only ask to be amused by these things, and it sort of did that. still a nostalgia-grubbing cash grab (obviously) but it's at least a sporadically fun action movie that's surprisingly pretty meta. should've been 45 minutes shorter.

SPOILERSi almost wish the movie opened with the continuation of the last scene from TFA (rey and luke coming face to face) because it would've been that much more hilarious when he throws the light sabre away. the porgs aka this year's big star wars xmas toy were actually fairly amusing, and that weird four titted penis monster that luke milks had me thinking of rick and morty for a hot second. that and the sphincter of darkness.

kylo killing snoke and the ensuing (and only!) light sabre fight of the movie, pretty fucking great. yoda puppet! that scene between luke and leia was pretty loaded... wonder if that was emphasized in editing post mortem or if it always played that way. carrie fisher's performance is far more impactful than in the last one.

I entirely agree with you and that's the main issue with these movies. The First Order is an abstract threat to an abstract galaxy. If I remember correctly, the movie says that they've "won"? They are in control. Of what? From what we see the galaxy seems...fine...? The First Order is just chasing fifty people across the galaxy, seeming really worried about powerless people...? That's why it feels like watching people in a Star Wars simulation.

I also wanted to talk about the casino: I was waiting for it, thinking it would be fresh, but like Lottery said I was drifting watching it. It was so weird. Not only because Finn is now an empty vessel for cheap jokes and Rose—the new character—just spits plot at us and that they have absolutely no real moment where they talk to each other or seem to have a bond. (Remember when Finn is angry at Del Toro for taking as payment the half-moon from Rose? Why does he care that much? Who knows!) And the scenes were rushed, lifeless, with no sense of adventure...It was sad...

But I liked everything about Rey and Ren. Their fight together was epic. The shots after Dern kills herself by jumping her ship into The First Order were stunning. What the movie showed about leadership was interesting, it's too bad that Poe Dameron is an underwhelming character and that Laura Dern came out of nowhere but her last scene with Carrie Fisher—who's very good in that movie, making everything stronger and more real just by the strength of her presence—was a sweet note.

I actually don't mind if it's about repeating the past, but I wish the whole didn't feel as fake...And can a trilogy function if every movie works against the last one? That "scene" with Maz was funny—once again another "cool looking" character from The Force Awakens that was supposed to be mysterious but that is actually just...a plot faciliator...

I'll see the last one. And then the new one from Rian Johnson—since he'll be writing the first one, maybe it will be better than that...But I see in The Last Jedi how all his interesting ideas about legacy ended being wind and I don't hope too much.

Spoilers

Spoilers

Yep ... they didn't build much of any kind of world starting with TFA and there's really no motivation behind the First Order's actions other than being Bad Guys, so they're essentially fighting for no reason over a galaxy that practically doesn't exist. What am I supposed to care about? They offer up mostly flat characters built for lame jokes and plot exposition instead. And yes, the Rebellion is this small rag-tag group. Don't you think if the stakes were so high in this battle and the galaxy were so large, the good guys could put together some kind of military force? I guess it's basically just 50 people trying to protect the whole good galaxy (who knows?) from the big evil guys who just really need to off these pesky resistance folk. One thing I liked about Rogue One was that they actually showed people living in a city on a planet with some infrastructure to produce machinery and stuff. Where does the Rebellion get their production materials from for all their ships and stuff? Was it inherited or salvaged from years past? It all just kind of appears with no explanation and then exists in this vacuum.

Rian Johnson may have stuff to say about legacy, but then some of these new characters are going through the motions of plot while the others are simply tossed away or used only as plot devices. Snoke, this great mystery baddy from TFA, turned out to be just this ugly ass motherfu**er who somehow emerged as Supreme Leader and then got tossed in the trash to advance Ren's story. What a waste. And yeah, Moz's only function was in this one was a plot device. Rey and Ren were sort of the only characters who weren't only put through plot exposition (and I guess Luke Skywalker). I did like Adam Driver's acting, and I think the best part of the movie was maybe Ren's and Rey's meta back and forth thing. Driver was good in those scenes. I don't like Daisy Ridley's acting much, but that's a personal thing, I guess. The fight together was cool, and could very well be the best part of movie if not the meta communication thing.

Now Finn in this movie, on the other hand, was just horrendous. The character has indeed become a lame empty vessel for cheap jokes. He has this earnestness of a 15 year old that just bugs me. And that's the depth of his character in this movie. Edit: And yes, the new Rose character was also a miss and the end scene between her and Finn sort of baffled me.

I was never too invested in Star Wars from the outset, but my big negative reaction is that I just don't feel there's enough substance to this whole endeavour. I feel like my time was wasted on a bad film that should promise more as a big franchise in pop culture, or at least aim for higher standards. In my mind, there was the opportunity to do something with more substance but still retain the special effects and the entertaining action sequences. What makes these movies better than a Michael Bay movie?

Jesus this was rough going. I felt absolutely nothing the entire run time. And I very much enjoyed The Force Awakens, but perhaps I was simply overjoyed to see the original cast all back and functioning in a semi-familiar way? This was just lazy and cobbled together. My interest in seeing the next one is pretty much zero at this point.

"Do you laugh at jealousy?"

"No, I don't even laugh at seasickness! I happen to regard jealousy as the seasickness of passion."

I instantly fell for The Force Awakens. But The Last Jedi is growing on me minute by minute. Sure it's a bit cheeseball, and some things are a bit spelled-out, but that's Star Wars. This is the best-made, most visually poetic, most subversive, most thematically mature film in the entire franchise.

SPOILERS

My only major problem with The Force Awakens was the way mass casualty was handled, which is to say... barely commented upon. By contrast, in The Last Jedi the loss of human life has a sharply-felt cost, from beginning to end, over and over again. We are continuously confronted with that gut-punch of death as the rebels suffer loss after loss. I still love TFA, but this felt so much more real.

Truly bizarre to see the complaints here about the twists and swerves. I thoroughly enjoyed having my expectations upended. They played fair, and each one was meaningful and felt right. One of the themes here, obviously, is "out with the old and in with the new." The movie tells us quite clearly: Kylo is not the new Darth Vader, and Snoke is not the new Emperor. It even attempts to upend what it means to be a hero, or whether traditional heroics are even useful right now — Poe's actions were actually kind of reckless and cost lives (and he has to reckon with that), and they do not allow Finn to martyr himself. The Last Jedi is a self-interrogating machine that is also somehow emphatically true to Star Wars.

When I saw The Force Awakens, I argued that Rey was a better character than Luke Skywalker. Now they've sort of brought them to the same level — Luke has never been more interesting, and Mark Hamill (to my actual surprise) has never played him better. I was ready to groan at Luke rejecting the quest, but he did it in a fairly interesting way, constantly and increasingly torn about what to do with her. Funny that people think this was too long, because I could have used another 20 minutes of Rey. What we got was pretty great, though.

Everything with Luke at the end was completely magnificent. The two suns setting — that killed me.

I very much hope that Rey is not Luke's daughter. That would be most boring and widely-predicted outcome. Shouldn't they upend that expectation? . . . I'm much more fascinated with the idea that there are a select few people out there with whom the force is strong, and that in the right circumstances they can awaken it. We don't need yet another descendent of Anakin Skywalker.

So obviously I'm very, very happy with this. It imbues with more meaning and fully crystallizes Rey's origin story, which is definitely one of the best stories in the saga.

I love this film so much, I honestly hesitate to engage with criticisms, but I'll do a little...

The First Order is just chasing fifty people across the galaxy, seeming really worried about powerless people...?

Clearly the rebellion is not powerless. The First Order correctly recognizes that the leadership has to be wiped out, because they have decades of experience running and hiding, and a lot of these people helped take down the Empire. The First Order also correctly recognizes that the rebellion's message is powerful, and dangerous if it spreads, and they already have allies throughout the galaxy who will activate if there is enough hope. That's all in the movie. I don't understand your argument here.

I mean, the Snoke thing shows that this First Order/Rebellion thing doesn't make sense and has no reality. I like that his death is basically Johnson saying: "Fuck that" to the mystery box Abrams opened. But you have that First Order things coming out of nowhere, being an abstract threat to the galaxy. What galaxy? They wiped out the Republic because they don't want to deal with any real fight. It's not even about the weird irony of the past haunting the future. It's pure abstraction.

Pure abstraction? Did you not see them blowing up planets in The Force Awakens? There are still plenty more populated planets in the galaxy. We saw one of them in this movie and several in The Force Awakens. I for one am glad they allowed for some serialization — the First Order is on a particular mission here. We don't need to be shown everything they do all over again in every movie.

Yep ... they didn't build much of any kind of world starting with TFA and there's really no motivation behind the First Order's actions other than being Bad Guys, so they're essentially fighting for no reason over a galaxy that practically doesn't exist. What am I supposed to care about?

The wonderful and perhaps unfair thing about Star Wars is that each movie can stand on the shoulders of what's come before. This universe is not built in one installment. You do understand it's the same universe you've seen in all the other films.

The First Order wants to dominate the galaxy for the same reason any conquering army ever takes over anything — resources, wealth, power, and the perpetuation thereof. As for why they're evil — there is a dark side of the force, Snoke wielded the dark side, and he built the First Order.